Slayer: The Virtual BtVS Spinoff E2: Microevil
by Gary Boshears
Summary: AU - New series starring Faith! Episode Two: Microevil - Faith learns that bad things come in small packages when tiny robots set out on a murderous path. Please Review! COMPLETE!
1. Overture

SLAYER EPISODE TWO: MICROEVIL 

**STARRING:**

Eliza Dushku as Faith James Marsters as Spike 

**Iyari**** Limon as Kennedy**

**Shane West as Robert**

**And**

**Michelle Trachtenberg as Dawn**

**GUEST STARRING:**

**D. B. Woodside as Principal Wood**

**Tom Lenk as Andrew**

**Nicholas Brendon as Xander**

**Jonathan Taylor Thomas as ****Tyler******

**Michelle Brookhurst as Alyssa**

**James King as Amber**

**Paige Moss as Brooke**

**WRITTEN BY:**

**Gary Boshears**

This is the second part in a multi-episode, virtual spin-off to Buffy the Vampire Slayer with 22 total episodes planned.  Any other fan-fic authors interested in helping to write the series, please send an e-mail to: slayer@easdarkthunder.com as people are needed to both write some episodes and help designing and outlining the story as a whole.

Be sure to read Episode One: Adjustments also available on this site!

Reviews of both stories welcome and encouraged!

OVERTURE 

            The music was loud, a fast paced rock song with a heavy, distorted guitar, drum beats, cymbal crashes, accents in all the right places and not too much bass.  The lights were bright, an almost dizzying array of dozens of colors, swirling around the room, accenting the dozens of people who had crowded the dance floor as well as those sitting at tables, playing pool or otherwise amusing themselves.  The Bronze was the place to be this evening.

            Everything was perfect for a Saturday night out of the house, the music, the lights, the crowd of high school kids and the fruit juice.  "Maybe not the fruit juice," was Dawn's thought after taking a drink of the sour beverage in front of her.  Kennedy, sitting next to her, took a long sip of hers, savoring the taste.  Dawn watched and wondered how her tongue could stand more than a microsecond exposure to the liquid.

            "Too sour?"  Kennedy interpreted the expression on Dawn's face.  Kennedy knew that this particular mixture was an acquired taste but, given some of the culinary choices Dawn had made in the past, she thought the younger Summers might enjoy it.

            "Just a tad," Dawn's voice was dry, not used to the concoction Kennedy had talked her into trying.  Between that and the climactic finale to one of the bands songs, Kennedy could barely understand what she had said.  She slid a glass of water Dawn's way.

            "Thanks," Dawn's voice cleared up after taking a healthy drink.  The band concluded their song, marked by applause from the dance floor and from the tables, Kennedy and Dawn joining in on the clapping.  The lead singer and guitar player talked to the other band members for a few brief seconds before returning to his microphone.

            "All right, this one you can slow dance to," the song opened with a slow but powerful guitar solo, joined shortly by the other guitarist, bass player and the drummer as they led into the main melody, singing about girls who wanted to just be friends and broken hearts that they could do without.  The couples on the dance floor pressed themselves close together, girls nuzzling about against the guys they were with.

            Kennedy was contempt to sitting, enjoying her drink and listening to the music but Dawn restlessly surveyed the crowd of people in the club.  They had expected Faith, Robert and Spike to show at some point but it was quite obvious they were not who she was spending her time looking for.

            "Tyler's over there," Kennedy casually pointed out as she ate a cherry of the small plastic sword that dangled in her drink.  Pretending not to care too much, Dawn looked in the direction she had pointed.  She saw Tyler sitting at the bar by himself, his red shirt perfectly accenting his light blonde hair and his creamy skin.  He was 'dreamy', as Dawn had once described him to Kennedy.

            Kennedy grinned; taking note of the obvious attention Dawn was paying to the young man.  "Go talk to him," she gave Dawn a gentle push out of her seat.  "What's the worst that could happen?"

            Dawn shot her a glare.  "Haven't we discussed that already," Dawn pointed out their conversation earlier this week in history class right before death crashed through the window.  "I try to talk to him but no words, only little sounds and half words get out of my mouth.  I make a fool of myself and I go the rest of my life without him noticing me.  Besides, he seems to be paying more attention to them," she pointed out Amber, Brooke and Alyssa, sitting at a table adjacent from Tyler, the young man diligently watching them.

            Kennedy had an idea.  One thing that she did know about guys, there was more than one way to get them to notice you.  "Well, we'll just have to get him to notice you," she energetically got out of her chair and took Dawn's hand, leading her reluctant friends towards the dance floor.  "Dance with me," she suggested, all but pulling Dawn behind her.

            Unlike Kennedy who the plan made perfect sense to, Dawn didn't understand what her friend was doing.  "Umm … didn't mean to give you the wrong impression but," Dawn fought to find words that weren't too offensive.  "I mean, you're cool and all but, I'm just not into that kind of thing."

            She laughed.  "Don't worry," she assured Dawn that she wasn't hitting on her.  "Just trying to help you out, trust me."

            Dawn began to allow herself to be pulled towards the dance floor.  "And how does me dancing with you get a boy to notice me?"

            "Have you ever met a guy that didn't flock to see two girls dancing with each other?"  Dawn came to a sudden understanding and followed Kennedy's lead.  The two girls positioned themselves, near but not too close to where Tyler was sitting, Kennedy wrapping her arms around Dawn's waste, Dawn putting her arms behind Kennedy's neck.  Swaying almost seductively to the slow rock song, the two girls instantly drew the attention of more than a few guys both on and off the dance floor.

            "See," Kennedy leaned closer to and whispered in Dawn's ear, feeling the pairs of eyes on the two of them.  Dawn however was less convinced of their success when she looked from the corner of her eye at Tyler who glanced at them but was still paying more attention to Brooke, Amber and Alyssa, seated at their table.

            "I don't think its working," it suddenly felt less urgent to Dawn however as she was relaxing and allowing herself to have a good time.

            "Just give it some time," Kennedy whispered, slightly guiding Dawn closer to her, closing the gap of space between them with no resistance from her friend, who rested her body against Kennedy's.

            Taking a sip of his soda and setting the glass down, Tyler again glanced at Dawn and her friend, whose name he hadn't managed to catch in school yet.  Dawn was beautiful, her friend wasn't bad either.  Then there was Amber, Brooke and Alyssa, considered by most, himself included to be the prettiest girls in school.  From his chair, he could hear most of their gossip.  Every time he looked at them, he caught various comments about him being a bookworm and a nerd.  That was what made Dawn different, she was nice.

            He glanced at the popular girl table one more time.  A tall man with a dark complexion had taken to talking to Amber and both she and her friends seemed to be hanging on his every word, in actuality hanging on his too perfect looks and eighties haircut.  He laughed at the shallowness of the girls before turning around to look at Dawn, disappointed the band had finished their song, knowing it would be the end of her and her friend dancing.

            Standing next to Dawn and her friend, he saw two tall men, both obviously too old for them, one with bleached blonde hair, dressed totally in black.  He hadn't thought Dawn would go for the older "bad boy" type but she seemed rather cozy with him as they talked.  The other wore a dark blue button-up shirt, not tucked into his pair of stonewashed blue jeans, a black trench coat, almost identical to the other man's on top of it all.  The group of four retired to a table, laughing and joking with each other.  Another girl joined them shortly later, older, dressed in a very suggestive manner, who also seemed rather friendly with the two men.

            Tyler sighed, ordering another soda and checking the time on his watch.  "Some guys have all the luck."

*******

            The hot water pounding her skin, washing away the stress and cares of the day felt wonderful.  Sarah was not usually stressed out by school but the first week of her senior year was already killing her, proving to almost be more than she could handle.  Her teachers were piling on homework, springing pop quizzes from every direction and she was barely getting any sleep in between studying and keeping up with her extra curricular activities.

            All of this and it was just the end of the first week of school.  She had wanted to go with the gang to The Bronze tonight but didn't have the energy to do so.  Indeed, she barely had the energy for the shower she was taking.  It felt good though, here she didn't have anything to worry about.

            Nothing to worry about aside from a spider.  She jumped back, seeing the insect crawling down the showerhead.  Sarah wasn't one of those girls who jumped and screamed at the very sight of an insect but she also wasn't the kind who cared more about them than people.  Using her black washcloth, she swatted the spider off the showerhead, sending him to a watery grave as it fell into the drain, quickly washed through by the running water.

            Sarah relaxed again, breathing in the steam, clearing her mind and letting the hot water massage her tense muscles.  Then she heard a sound, something skittering across the tile floor in the bathroom.  She realized it was probably just her parent's Chihuahua but wanted to make sure.  She slowly and reluctantly opened the shower curtain, horrified by the sight in front of her.

            Dozens of spiders, but not normal spiders.  These were gray and silver, dull metallic colors and made squeaking noises as they walked towards here, their metal legs tapping against tile floor.  They moved with amazing speed, crawling into the shower, and beginning to crawl up her legs.

            Sarah screamed.  The spiders on her legs attacked, their bites sending her to the ground, hitting her head on the wall of the shower, a trail of blood following her down, blending with the water that flowed into the drain.  Suddenly, her senior year didn't seem so bad.


	2. Act One

ACT ONE 

            One of them carried a sacred duty to defend the world from vampires and demons.  One was a tortured vampire with a soul, atoning for his crimes.  One was a self-proclaimed demon hunter with a past he hadn't trusted anyone else with and two were high school students with what they believed to be more problems than the other three had put together.  

For the moment though Faith, Spike, Robert, Dawn and Kennedy weren't worried about problems, duties or demons, they were simply having a good time, enjoying each other's company.  With the exception of Faith and Robert who hadn't said a sentence to each other the entire night.  Their avoiding talking to each other did not go unnoticed by the rest of the gang though no one exactly knew how to say anything about it or how to get the two of them talking.

            It had to be an awkward situation for the two of them.  The last time they saw each other, Faith was in prison and Robert was on the other side of the bars.  Though neither of them had been particularly forthcoming regarding those events, despite efforts by both Dawn and Spike to pry information from them, they did know something happened that strained the friendship they had built, causing Robert to leave on his journey around the world, showing up in Sunnydale as a demon hunter a year later.

            Dawn, after spending half an hour engrossed in conversation with her friends, realized she had forgotten about Tyler and looked to where he had been sitting, seeing that his bar stool was now occupied by someone else.  Kennedy, noticing Dawn looking in that direction, briefly removed herself from listening to one of Spike's stories from one of his many collections.  "He left right after the gang showed up," Dawn was forced to wonder why it was Kennedy was keeping such a close eye on him but wrote it off to potential Slayer instincts and just trying to help.

            "Oh well," she conceded.  "Maybe next time."  Though she didn't feel bad about missing yet another chance to talk to Tyler, Dawn was suddenly reminded of how tired she felt.  It had been a long day and all of this fun was beginning to take its toll on her.  "Hey gang," she waited until the end of Spike's story before standing up, preparing to leave.  "I'm wiped; think I'm going to head to the house."

            "Yeah," Kennedy stood up also.  Though she wasn't as tired as Dawn, her day had been equally long and she imagine she would want to be in bed before the rest of the gang was ready to call it a night.  "Think I'm going to call it also."

            "Be careful going home," Faith didn't need to remind them of that.

            Dawn nodded.  "Don't worry, it's not like this town sits on top of a Hellmouth or anything like that."  Kennedy slightly laughed at Dawn's dry humor, the other three not seeming to find it funny.

            "Careful," Faith reiterated.

            "Don't worry," Kennedy took Dawn's arm.  "I'll keep her out of trouble."

            "You kids behave yourself now," Spike, in a good mood, commented as they left.  The vampire had been getting more than his fair share of violence lately, hence the unusually cheery mood the vampire was displaying.  Robert, Faith and he watched the two girls leave the club.  Spike gave a fake sniffle.  "Our little girls are all grown up."

            "Speaking of being grown up," Faith stood, removing her jacket, revealing her sleeveless, skintight black top.  The band began another loud and fast song, the dance floor quickly filling up with people, the intensity and speed of the overhead lights increasing to fit the music.  "Let's have some fun.  One of you dance with me."  Though they both stared at her, neither Robert nor Spike accepted the invitation.  "No takers?"  Faith was almost hurt especially when they didn't answer a second time.  "Your loss," Faith said, walking out onto the dance floor, disappearing into a sea of people.

            Spike fixed his eyes on Robert who slowly sipped his drink, all while obviously keeping his eyes on Faith.  "What's wrong with you?"  The vampire was blunt.

            "Excuse me."

            "Go dance with the girl," Spike motioned his head in the direction of the dance floor.  "It's obvious you want to.  You don't have any reason to hold back anymore."

            "Yeah I do," Robert's voice became deadly serious.  

Spike didn't understand but he supposed he had his reasons.  "Well", the vampire popped off of his stool.  "I guess one of us ought to have some fun."  As Spike worked his way through the crowd, drawing more than a few suggestive glances from single women, the band finished the song they were playing, the guitar playing instantly began leading into another, slower tune.

"All right," the lead singer enthusiastically grasped his microphone.  "This is the last dance for the evening so grab that special someone and let us take you home."  

Spike found Faith amongst a large group of men and women who were now pairing off for the final song; she smiled when she saw him.  "May I have this dance Slayer?"  He extended his hand to her; she took it, wrapping her around him as he wrapped his around her waste.

"You sure you can handle it?"  Faith gave him a playful smile that bordered on flirtatious.

"If you're sure dancing with a vampire won't hurt your image."

"No more than dancing with a Slayer will hurt yours."

            "So what's the deal with your friend?"  Spike and the Slayer moved slowly the music together, Faith looking at his face but seeming distracted, occasionally looking over her shoulder to the table where Robert still sat, watching the two of them.

            "I don't know," the truth of it was she had barely been able to talk to Robert since he arrived in Sunnydale and she didn't know why he was keeping himself so distant from her.  "He's changed so much Spike, he feels like a totally different person than when I knew him a year ago.  We were so close then and now, it feels like there's just this big space between us."

            "People change Slayer, you're a testament to that but just because the two of you have changed, and it doesn't mean you're not still friends.  Doesn't mean you can't now have something both of you wanted when you couldn't have it.  People change but it doesn't change how they feel about each other."  Spike felt like in some ways he should be giving this lecture to himself.

            "You sure about that Spike?"  The vampire wondered what the Slayer was getting at.  "Meaning, even though you turned to the good side, you still love Drusilla, would still be with her if you had the chance?"  He wondered how she knew about that, thinking that it sometimes felt like the story of his life was on the best seller list.

            "That's different."  The vampire's voice became harsh.

            "Because you're different," Faith knew she had Spike when he did not reply.  They silently danced until the end of the song when they separated.  Faith suddenly did not want to be here.  "I've got to go."  She stormed out of The Bronze, almost knocking people over on the way.

            As Spike went to the bar, ordering a strong drink, a group of three men, in their twenties by the looks of them, on the upper level of the club watched him attentively.  They were all dressed normally but unlike the rest of the patrons, did not seem to be interested in having.  Conventional fun at least.  "That's not Spike is it?"  One of them asked in a thick southern outfit.

            "'Fraid so," the second, who was chewing on a thick piece of straw, answered, also with a southern accent.

            "What's he doing dancing with a Slayer?"  The third one asked, his southern accent not as strong as the other two.  The sight they had just witnessed discussed all of them, hardly able to believe that their old friend Spike was getting all cozy with a Slayer.  Granted it was the Slayer that allegedly went evil but it was a Slayer nonetheless.

            "Rumor is he fights for them now," the first one commented, gesturing to the crowd of people below.  "I even heard he went and got a soul.  And it wasn't like a soul to play with and torture either, he got his soul back."

            "That's sick," the third one quickly added, snarling his nose in repulsion.

            "Don't worry boys," the second said from behind the other two.  "We're going to show Spike the error of his ways.  Then we're going to take care of the Slayer."

*******

            "Hey, you want to go make a round through the cemetery?"  Kennedy suggested as they walked by it.  Following her brief hospitalization, Kennedy had spent the last few nights sitting at home, doing homework and calisthenics rather than going out on patrol with Faith.  Having not even seen a vampire for most of the week, she had a growing urge for a little action.

            Dawn had been reserved since they left The Bronze walking home.  Normally Dawn would be up for a spot of action herself but she was in a strange way tonight.  "Nah, no cemeteries tonight, just home and hot chocolate and bed."

            "I don't know," Dawn answered with a shrug and a lie.  She really did know; she knew that nothing felt right.  Even hanging with the gang, having a great time at The Bronze didn't feel exactly right, without Buffy and Willow.  Even Andrew and Xander didn't bother to show, if they even knew about the little get together.  Ever since Faith moved in and Buffy left, everyone seemed to be growing further apart, Dawn didn't want that to happen.  "Do you miss Willow?"  Dawn's question came out of the blue, catching Kennedy off guard.

            "Yes," her bubbly, need to slay something attitude disappeared.  "Very much."  It was something Kennedy hadn't worked through in her own mind or with others yet.  She tried, as much as possible, to just not think about Willow.  To not worry about her, to not wish she could be in her arms and to not wonder if Willow was having the same feelings.

            Dawn began to feel as though she could open up, that Kennedy understood how she felt.  "Does everything," she was unsure of the words she wanted to use.  "Since she left, does everything just feel a little –"

            "Wrong?"  Kennedy finished her sentence.  She answered with a reserved nod.  "In a lot of ways it does, I miss her a lot but, I'm not sure if it's wrong or if it's something I'm just not used to yet you know?  A lot of this is real new to me.  High school, training.  You and Faith, especially you, are closer to me than my family ever was and that means a lot.  I don't thing wrong is the word for it, just different."

            "Yeah, different," Dawn could see that.  She wasn't really having any problems, just that everything felt a little off.  "Different isn't bad, I can work with different."  Dawn felt some confidence returning, it was not the first time Kennedy had that effect on her.

            A scream came from the cemetery prompting both girls to come to an immediate halt.  When they heard a second scream, Kennedy jumped over the fence, helping Dawn over before shooting into a full sprint.  Running through headstones, crypts, trees and flowers, Kennedy and Dawn followed the sound of the female scream as their only guide.  The two girls ran into an opening to see a vampire preparing to get intimately acquainted with the neck of a young blonde girl it had bent over a tombstone.

            Not waiting for Dawn to catch up, Kennedy pulled a stake from the inner pocket of her jacket and ran towards the vampire, hoping to stab it through the back while it was off guard, distracted by its meal squirming underneath him.  When she neared the vampire, prepared to drive the stake into its back, it spun around, lifting the girl off the tombstone and throwing her into Kennedy, breaking her charge.

            Kennedy recovered quickly lifting the girl off of, getting her first good look at her face.  "Amber?"  Kennedy thought she recognized the girl from school who Dawn had identified as one of the group of popular girls.

            "Please, please help me," she said, trying to crawl away.

            "Mmmm … looks like this is my lucky day," the vampire walked slowly towards the two seemingly helpless girls.  "Two meals for the price of one."  He stood above them, giving Kennedy time to think of a plan, thinking Dawn should be conveniently catching up to her soon.  "Now, my only problem is, should I eat the light haired blood or the dark haired blood first."

            "Oh, take her!  Take her!"  Amber exclaimed, pointing to Kennedy.

            Kennedy recognized the vampire now as who Amber had been talking to at The Bronze.  She scolded herself for being too distracted at the time to recognize him then.  Had she, she could have told the Slayer and saved everyone a whole lot of trouble.

            "Hey!"  Kennedy let go of a long held breath when she heard Dawn's voice from behind them.  "Hey!  Vampire!"  The sister of the Slayer didn't quite seem to know what to say while the demon stared at her.  "Why don't you come … eat me!"

            "A volunteer!"  He gave a fangy smiled and began to run towards her.

            Thanks to Dawn's distraction, Kennedy had the opening she needed.  She swept the vampire's legs out from under him as she flipped to her feet in a defensive stance.  The vampire began to struggle back to its feet but Kennedy was prepared.  She struck him across the face with a right cross, immediately followed by a left cross and kicked him with her right foot, sending him rolling into the tombstone, his head hit against in with a loud cracking noise.

            With adrenaline surging through her veins, Kennedy ran after him.  The vampire, still lying on the ground, planted his foot in her stomach, popped to his feet, grabbed her by the shoulders and tossed her into the tombstone.  "I hate working for my dinner," he lowered his head, inching towards her neck.

            "I'm not anyone's dinner."  She rammed her elbow into his chin, grabbed the vampire, reversing their positions and tossing him into the tombstone, cracking his back against it.  With the vampire stunned, she brought the stake up, ramming the weapon into its heart, the demon turning to dust.

            "That," Kennedy turned her head to see a still shocked looking Amber walking up from behind her.  "Was so cool!"  Finally realizing that her attacker was gone, Amber ran up to Kennedy throwing her arms around her.  Kennedy raised her eyebrows, giving Dawn an uncomfortably surprised expression.

            "Thank you so much," Amber's voice at least sounded genuinely appreciative for Kennedy's action.  Pulling away from her, Amber studied her face.  "Hey, don't you go to Sunnydale High?"

            "Uh, yeah, yeah I do."

            Hearing footsteps coming from behind her, Amber quickly looked around, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw it was just Dawn.  "Dawnie!"  Amber squealed, ran to Dawn, through her arms around her and squeezed her tightly.  "Thank you too Dawn.  Thank you for distracting him so uh," Amber realized she still didn't know Kennedy's name.

            "Kennedy," Dawn volunteered the information.

            "So Kennedy could kill that mean, uh, thing, uh, what was that exactly?"  Amber was quickly realizing she had no clue what was going on.  She should have known taking a romantic walk through the cemetery with a man she met on The Bronze would not end well.

            "Vampire," Kennedy was calm, cool and casual as she walked past Amber, who was still hugging Dawn, on her way back to the road.  She didn't see the need to indulge Amber's scared ramblings nor was she particularly interested in doing so.

            "A vampire!"  Amber wouldn't have believed what they told her if not for having gotten a good look at the creature right before it tried to bite her neck, something she expected a vampire would be likely to do.

            "Yeah," Dawn said, pulling Amber's arms away from her and walking quickly to catch up with Kennedy.  "Hey, we've got to split, see you at school Monday."

            Feeling suddenly alone, Amber looked around the cemetery, fearing there could be more vampires just waiting to swoop down upon her.  "Hey," she waved to Dawn and Kennedy, walking as fast as she could in high heels to catch up with them.  "Can I come with?"

*******

            Spike and Robert left The Bronze through the front entrance.  The band had stopped playing and the DJ's selection of music was becoming horribly repetitive and the two of them could only drink so much.

            "I'm telling you mate," Spike continued the conversation they were having at the bar before Robert decided it was time to leave.  Spike had offered to challenge him to a drinking contest which he wisely refused.  "She cares about you."  The two of them leaned against the outside wall of the club, Spike lighting a cigarette.  The flow of people into The Bronze had stopped and only a few people were leaving with the night still fairly early, giving them relative privacy for their conversation.  "I can see it in her eyes, when she looks at you, the same thing I see when you look at her."

            "Let it go Spike."  Robert bummed a cigarette and light from the vampire, taking a long drag off it as he relaxed against the wall.  Despite her being very prevalent in his thoughts, Faith was the last thing he wanted to talk about.  "There's nothing between Faith and I," he puffed on the cigarette again.

            Spike finished off his smoke and flicked the cigarette, sparks and tiny ashes dancing across the concrete.  "Just take one piece of advice and then I'll let it go."  Robert nodded for Spike to continue.  "If you really do care about her, love her, then don't let it go unsaid.  It'll tear you up inside until you do tell her.  Don't wait until it's too late or until you've done too much damage to yourself."

            Waiting for a response that never came, Spike felt something bite his left leg.  "Ow!"  He reached down and pulled a tiny metallic spider from his leg.  He hadn't noticed it crawling up his leg but it definitely had a strong bite.  After briefly examining it and showing it to Robert, Spike tossed it to the ground, the robot breaking apart when it hit the cold concrete.  "Damn erector sets," Spike commented as he focused on lighting another cigarette.  "I told the bloody idiot he came up with the idea they were going to be trouble."

            Robert brought his eyes to the ground and his own cigarette fell out of his mouth.  He tapped Spike in the arm, pointing to the ground where dozens, hundreds of the robot spiders closed on them from all sides.  "Bloody hell!"  Spike shouted, his own cigarette falling to the ground.

            Robert wasted no time.  Reaching into his coat, he pulled his matching Glock pistols from underneath his arms, took aim with each and began firing.  A single bullet was enough to stop one of the robots but they were too many.  As they got past Robert's wall of bullet fire, both Spike and the demon hunter began stomping at the ground around them.

            "I'm sure a bloody nerd is behind this," Spike said, stomping at the ground, crushing several spiders with each attempt.  The vampire picked the ones that made their way onto his leg off with his hands and tossed them into the approaching mass.  "If we live through this, we're getting rid of all the bloody nerds!"  Robert paused to reload both of his weapons.  Spike began madly kicking at the spiders, sending groups of them flying into those still approaching but there was no end in sight, they kept coming.

            Robert finished reloading his pistols and tossed one to Spike while he reached down to his leg, pulling a smaller Glock from a concealed holster.  Both of them continued to open fire and stomp the robot spiders as they approached.  Finally, after several minutes where both of them received more than several bites and stings, the remaining spiders retreated.  Spike flipped the pistol around, holding it by the barrel to hand it back to Robert.

            As soon as he took the gun back, Spike ran in the direction of the retreating robots.  The vampire wasn't the type to let something that had just try to kill him escape.  Running after them for three blocks, Robert close behind him, Spike finally saw them disappear into the sewers.  The vampire slid to a stop at a nearby manhole, popping the lid off of it.  "They went into the sewers!"  Spike filled Robert in when he caught up.  "I think we can still catch them!"

            "Let 'em go Spike," Robert was not winded despite having just ran several blocks at a full sprint.

            "Excuse me!"  The vampire angrily stood up from the ground.  "Maybe you missed something but those things just tried to kill us!  I think that has earned them a good thrashing!"

            Despite Spike's angry and aggressive demeanor, Robert remained eerily calm, taking the time to replace his weapons in their holsters after reloading each, something he had not been able to do while running to catch up with Spike.  "Wherever they're going, there's bound to be more of them and we're not real well equipped to fight off another army of those things."

            Spike admitted Robert was probably right, despite his burning desire to exact some payback for the attempted attack against them.  "I guess your right," Spike slid the manhole cover back on.  "But mark my words; I'm going to get a little revenge on them.  I still think we should go down there now, see how many of the little bastards we could take out."

            "Yeah well, some of us do have to go to work tomorrow."  Robert said much to Spike's amazement.

            "Work?"

            "I got a job," Robert casually remarked as he started walking away.  "Start tomorrow."

            "A job?"  Spike scoffed.  "Why?  Where?"

*******

            After walking around Sunnydale for an hour, Dawn and Kennedy had finally convinced Amber she was safe to go home.  Granted they had to walk her to her house, then to her room and basically tuck her into bed, but the bottom line was they had finally gotten rid of her and managed to get back to the house.  To their surprise, as soon as they walked in the door, Faith was waiting behind it, arms crossed with a rather annoyed expression on her face.

            "And where have you two been?"  The Slayer instantly jumped on him.  When she beat them home despite that they left The Bronze before her, she had grown concerned, even searching the nearby neighborhood for them before deciding that it would be better to wait at the house.

            Dawn stuttered, still thinking Faith's reaction would be something like Buffy's.  "Uh, we had a little trouble on the way home, no big problems though."  Judging by the look on her face, the Slayer did not find that answer satisfactory.

            "Vampire," Kennedy took the lead and delivered the answer.  Dawn now expected a harsh dressing down about how they shouldn't be out looking for and fighting vampires on their own.

            "Kill it?"  Faith's annoyed expression did not disappear.

            "Yeah," Kennedy did not share Dawn's concern that Faith might be mad, thinking it better to be straight with her rather than try to dance around the subject.

            "Good," Faith relaxed slightly.  She turned around, walking up the stairs.  With all of the lights off in the house, it was evident Faith had been putting off the end of the evening waiting for the two girls to return home.  "I'll see you in the morning."

            Dawn and Kennedy shared a look.  "That was too easy," Dawn was the first to comment.

            "Faith's cool like that," Kennedy took off her jacket, hanging it on the wooden coat rack in the entryway.  "She probably would have only been mad if we got killed."  Kennedy strolled into the kitchen as Dawn hung up her coat, following shortly after.  Kennedy was warming up a pot of milk on the stove, in line with Dawn's hot chocolate comment from earlier in the evening.

            Dawn went to the cabinet, grabbing two mugs before getting the chocolate sauce out of the refrigerator and marshmallows from another cabinet.  As she was laying out the items, the phone rang.  Considering it was rather late in the evening, both Dawn and Kennedy considered it could be either Buffy or Willow calling and bolted to the cordless phone on the kitchen wall, Kennedy barely beating Dawn to it.

            "Hello," after only a couple seconds of conversation, the expression on Kennedy's face noticeably changed.  She handed the phone to Dawn, trying to look disappointed, forcing Dawn to wonder who was calling and what kind of bad news.  "For you," she said as Dawn accepted the phone.  "Tyler," Kennedy whispered with a wry grin before Dawn put the phone to her ear.

            Panicking, she covered the phone with her hand, not holding it to her hear, very literally scared as she looked at Kennedy.  "What do I say?"

            "Just be yourself," Kennedy coolly walked out of the room, shooting Dawn a final grin.  "I'll leave the two of you alone."

            Dawn took several deep breaths before holding the phone up to her ear.  "Hello," she breathed a sigh of relief that she managed to get the first word out, thinking it all had to be downhill from there.

            "Hey Dawn," she couldn't help but think how sexy Tyler's voice was.  "It's Tyler.  Tyler Jacobson."

            "Uh, hey Tyler," for once in her life, Dawn had no idea what to say next.  "How's it going?"  She went with the always safe approach.

            "Pretty good I guess, I just wanted to say I saw you at The Bronze tonight with your, friends," Tyler put an odd emphasis on the word.  "Sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to you.  I was hoping maybe we could talk at school on Monday."  Before Dawn could respond, Tyler continued speaking.  "You mind if I make a little confession?"

            "Uh sure."  Dawn was more than happy to let him continue talking as it kept the pressure to continue the conversation off of her.

            "Well, to be honest, I've been wanting to get to know you better for a while now.  Last year you seemed so distracted all the time but now, well, I think it'd be fun if we spent some time together."

            Dawn was beaming.  "Yeah, I'd like that too."

            "Great, well I guess I'll talk to you later then."

            "Yeah," Dawn agreed.  "See you soon."

            "Count on it."

            Following her phone call, Dawn and Kennedy shared cups of hot chocolate and half an hour of gossip and conversation, Kennedy wanting to know all the details from Tyler's call.  They then retired to their individual rooms.  Dawn, exhausted, wasted little time changing into a spaghetti strap shirt and pair of shorts before collapsing into bed.

            On her window ceil, a tiny metallic creature sat, its black eyes gazing into Dawn's room, recording everything.  Miles away, on a computer screen, a young man watched everything in real time, gazing at Dawn, using a joystick and tapping the keys on his keyboard to zoom in on her face, smiling as he sipped his soda.


	3. Act Two

ACT TWO 

            "I'm glad you decided to come onboard here with us Robert," dressed in his crisp, light blue uniform of the Sunnydale Police Department, Robert followed Chief Daryl Morgan out of his office and through the main department office building.  Given his past experience, good performance when he was riding with a training officer on Sunday and the department's need for officers, Robert was being put on patrol by himself after only a day.  "Though I've got to admit it took me by surprise," the two walked into the parking lot where the chief pointed Robert's new patrol car.  "Thought you'd have stayed in Los Angeles, I heard they offered you a job there."

            It was an issue he definitely did not want to discuss this Monday morning or anytime for that matter.  "Yeah well, I just wanted to get away for a while."

            "I was sorry to hear about your dad," the chief continued into another subject Robert did not want brought up.  "You know he and I worked together in LA when we both started on the force."

            "Didn't you introduce him to my mom?"  Robert preemptively asked the question to get it out of the way, hoping once it was done with the chief would move on to a different subject.

            "Yeah I did," Morgan's voice was also grave.  "Listen Robert, I'm real sorry about both of your folks, your sister too.  If there's anything I can do for you, don't hesitate to ask."

            "The job is more than enough boss, it's a big help."

            "Surprised you came to Sunnydale of all places," Chief Morgan could not help but press for a little information that he was getting, it was almost second nature for him after over twenty-five years of police work.  "Doesn't seem like the type of place a young man like you would choose to make his home.  What made you decide to move here anyways?"

            Robert pondered on the best answer to give that question.  To say he came to kill vampires and demons probably wasn't the best comment to make to the chief of police, especially given the tremendous amount of faith the chief was showing in him.  "A couple good friends of mine live here," he decided that it wasn't entirely a lie.  "I didn't think staying in LA would do a lot to help me get through this so I figured, why not come where my friends are?"

            "Good enough," the chief handed him the keys to the white Ford Crown Victoria police interceptor with the blue stripes of the Sunnydale Police Department on the sides.  "You'll be working a rotating shift.  We'll keep you on the 7AM to 3PM shift for a while but you'll probably be moving to the night-shift eventually."  

Robert had no qualms with that, he could then patrol for vampires while doing his job, killing two birds with one stone, to use the old saying.  "I'll work whenever you need to me to chief."  Robert unlocked the door to the car, tossing his black duffle bag carrying various pieces of equipment into the passenger seat, anxious to get on the road and end what he saw as an unpleasant conversation.

"Well, get after it," the chief's voice became more encouraging to fit the situation.  "Good luck and be careful out there."

"I will chief," Robert assured him, already sitting down in the car and starting the engine.  As the chief walked off, he closed the door, put on his seatbelt and threw the car into reverse, quickly backing out of the parking place and leaving the department parking lot.

Driving through the streets of Sunnydale, waving to people, scanning for anything suspicious and making the police presence known, he began to wonder about Chief Morgan's question, why was he here?  The more he thought about it, the more he didn't believe the explanation he gave himself of this being the best place to kill demons and vampires.  When giving himself that answer, he was forced to consider at least part of the reason he chose to become a demon hunter.

And that explanation led to the other thing he didn't want to think about.  Faith.  He couldn't deny that she was a major motivation for his wanting to be part of this life and hence for his coming to Sunnydale.  After Angel had told him she now lived in this city, he didn't think twice before packing up what he needed, taking off from Los Angeles and seeking her out.

Robert wasn't sure what he was expecting when he came to Sunnydale.  He doubted Faith would just up and throw her arms around him but he had expected something a little different than the cold shoulder she was giving him.  Granted he hadn't attempted to be too social with her either but he didn't feel as though any attempts to get closer to Faith would be very well received.  All in all, he wondered if he hadn't made a big mistake coming to Sunnydale and if he hadn't come for all the wrong reasons.

Text began coming across the screen of the computer mounted on the inside of the car, indicating that the police department was dispatching an assignment to him.  Not a strange occurrence in Sunnydale, the assignment was to respond to and investigate a dead on scene in a residential neighborhood.  Information also indicated that emergency medical services and the coroner's office had already been notified as well.  He lifted his radio microphone off the dash and keyed the transmit button.  "1144," he identified himself by his unit number before continuing.  "Clear on D.O.S. call, be responding."

"PD clear 1144 at 0930."  A female communications office acknowledged his transmission.  Not knowing the exact nature of the death, Robert decided to err on the side of caution and get there quickly.  He reached down to the switch and activated his vehicles flashing red and blue emergency lights, accelerating through the streets.  Approaching an intersection, he engaged the siren, shooting into the turn lane and going through a red light.

As he was already fairly close, it took him less than two minutes to reach the residential district the call was in.  Once he was onto the residential roads and clear of the traffic on the main city streets, he deactivated both his overhead lights and siren.  Turning onto Ave. H, Robert checked the address on his computer again and scanned the addresses of the houses before he located the one he had been dispatched to.

Robert's first impression was that everything he could see was the definition of normal.  A two story house, white with a light brown trim, a garden and picket fence in the front yard with the family's last name, Peters on a sign on the gate and a basketball hoop hanging over the two car garage.  Parked in the driveway was a newer model dark silver SUV and a green sports car, also a newer model.

"1144, show me arrived on scene," Robert put his car in park, turned the engine off, reached to his duty belt, turning on his hand held radio and stepped out of the vehicle.

"10 – 4, 1144, arrived on scene at 0932."

Robert walked through the gate and across the stone walkway to the front door, still surveying the house and the yard for anything out of the ordinary, his right hand resting naturally on the thumb break to his firearm's holster.  He peaked through the two rectangular clouded glass windows into the house, seeing nothing.  He raised his hand and knocked twice on the door, peering through the windows to see if anyone was coming.

After waiting for two minutes, he knocked again on the door.  "Police Department."  Still not receiving any answer, Robert stepped away from the door, and glanced through the front window of the house.  The white curtains blocked most of his view and he could not see any movement in the small area of the house that was visible.  He went back around and again knocked on the door.  "Police!"  He raised his voice, hoping to reach any occupants.

He was growing suspicious.  Robert walked back down the driveway, glancing at the license plates on the two cars parked in it.  He keyed the lapel microphone to his handheld radio.  "1144."  The police department communications acknowledged his transmission.  "1144, need two vehicle registration checks."  Looking for a place to start, not wanting to resort to kicking in the front door, he decided the cars would be as good a place as any.

"1144 go ahead sir," as dispatch answered, the front door the house flew open, a disheveled looking man standing inside it.  Robert heard the door open, turned around and saw the man.

"1144, disregard," Robert walked back up the stone path to the front door.  The men was in his mid-forties and, judging from his untucked shirt, hair that had obviously had fingers ran through it and tear stained face, was no doubt a family member of the death Robert was sent to investigate.  Up until now, it had all seemed so impersonal, before seeing the distraught look upon the man's face.

"Mr. Peters?"  Robert assumed, maintaining a cool and professional demeanor.

The man could barely speak, still fighting back tears and stuttering several times before his mouth formed the words.  "Yes, yes sir, thank you for coming so quickly."  He extended his hand that Robert took, gripped firmly and shook it for a brief second before pulling his hands away.

"Officer Robert Bloodworth, Sunnydale Police Department."

"Eric Peters."  Mr. Peters barely shook his hand in return.  Robert stood silently for a moment, hoping Peters would begin an explanation as to what had happened, allowing Robert to avoid the awkward situation of having to ask what was going on, something never easy to do in circumstances like this.

"Ummm … come in please," Peters led the way into the house.  The inside was in line with what Robert had expected.  Clean white paint with family pictures and prints of artwork adorning the walls, polished hardwood floors with a modern assortment of furniture, nothing out of the ordinary.  As far as Robert could tell, they were a fairly well off, normal family, leading him to begin to discount any sort of a supernatural explanation.

"My wife and I were out of town this weekend," Eric continued, leading Robert through the entryway, living room and up a set of straight stairs.  "Visiting her parents.  We got home a few minutes ago and noticed my daughter Sarah's car was still at home, she should have been in school today so we were wondering what the problem was.  She wasn't in her room but we heard the shower running."  As they finished ascending the stairs, Eric pointed to the second door on the left of a narrow hallway.  Robert took his lead and slowly opened the door.

With Mr. Peters standing behind him, Robert walked the short distance across the tile bathroom floor to the shower and slowly opened the pastel yellow curtain.  Robert cringed at the ghastly sight.  The body looked as though it had been eaten alive, blood, muscles and organs were exposed, all showing visible signs of damage.  "We found her like that and called the police," Peters continued, standing behind Robert who could do nothing but look at the body.  "We turned the water off but didn't move the body."

"1144," Robert turned his head away from the body and keyed his lapel microphone.  "1144, confirmed D.O.S.  Contact the on call investigator and ask them to respond to my location, tell EMS they can stand down."

Within fifteen minutes, the Peters residence was buzzing with officials from the county coroner's office, additional police officers, police detectives and a crime scene investigation unit.  Victims' services personnel were consoling Mr. and Mrs. Peters while they contacted other family members, telling them about Sarah's tragedy.

Robert watched in the bathroom as the corner's office and crime scene unit photographed and collected what evidence was available from the scene.  Standing next to him, looking stark and business like in his dark brown suit with white shirt and blue tie was Investigator Richard LeMay who was equally in the dark as to the possible cause of death.  "The parent's story checks out," he glanced at Robert who was intently watching the corner's office as they prepared to move the body.  "I asked the mother if she could think of anyone that might want to hurt Sarah," LeMay reached into his jacket pocket, produced a color photograph and handed it to Robert.  Robert glanced at the picture of Sarah and a young man, obviously at some sort of school dance judging by their attire.  

Said her ex-boyfriend took it pretty hard when they broke up."  LeMay shrugged.  "I know it's kind of a long shot but you might want to check it out."

"I don't know how an ex-boyfriend could produce wounds like that," Robert did not mean to question the investigator's instincts but he could not see a human causing wounds like what had killed Sarah.  Nor did it seem inline with many of the demon species he was aware of.

"Like I said," LeMay lit a cigarette in his mouth.  "Long shot but it might be worth it for you to check out.  If for no other reason than so we can tell the parents that we're pursuing all possible leads."

"I'll get on it as soon as we're done here," Robert acknowledged the need to make it seem like they were doing all they could to find the perpetrator of this heinous act.  The corner's officials removed the body from the shower, placing it in a black bag and walking out of the bathroom with Investigator LeMay following.

Robert took the opportunity to check the shower for any final clues that may have been hidden by Sarah's lifeless body.  Looking into the still blood covered shower, he instantly saw one.  Grabbing a pair of latex gloves from his duty belt and an empty evidence bag left behind by the crime scene unit, he reached into the tub, picking it up and placing it in the bag.

He hid the bag inside his uniform, between his blue shirt and his bullet proof vest.  It was a good thing Investigator LeMay had asked him to go to the high school and talk to Sarah's ex-boyfriend because he now needed to talk to Faith.  Something decidedly unnatural was going on.

*******

            "And remember," Andrew needed a few final words to the class as the bell rang and the students began gathering their belongings.  "Mr. Potter will be back tomorrow and your homework for tonight is to read chapter six in your textbooks."  He had nearly said no when Principal Wood had called, asking if he would substitute for a high school robotics class but was now finding it very rewarding.

            "Hey," a blonde-haired student walked up to Andrew as he was gathering materials in his briefcase before his off period.  "Just wanted to let you know that I enjoyed the lecture," Andrew smiled at the compliment.  "Mr. Potter always makes things so boring, like he's talking out of a text book, probably because he is but you really made it fun."

            "Well good, thank you Tyler," Andrew was flustered, not used to receiving compliments like that.  He was more adjusted to people not wanting to hear what he had to say or telling him to shut up when he did have a comment.  "I'm glad some high school students think about more than lunch, football and girls."

            "Yeah," Tyler said with a large smile.  "I'm totally into robotics, computers, all sorts of stuff like that.  I do a lot of it in my own time, you know, just as kind of a hobby."

            "Really?"  Andrew was surprised to have met someone like this who didn't buy into the normal high school fads.  "What kind of stuff do you work on?"

            "Hey," Tyler suddenly seemed anxious.  "I've got to go to class but we'll talk later."  He quickly made his way out of the classroom and into the hallway.  Andrew surveyed the now empty classroom, making sure nothing was left behind before he locked up for a period.  Something not entirely unusual caught his eye.  On top of one of the light brown desks was a single piece of paper.  He was sure someone simply forgot their notes or assignments and would be back for it later and therefore decided to put it on his desk where it wouldn't become lost or damaged.

            When he picked up the paper however, he saw it was much more than simple notes.  The writing and drawings on it were small, a great deal being crammed onto one piece of paper.  It contained a list of materials, various sets of instructions and equations as well as drawings for various components of some kind of robotic device.  The technology was advanced, too advanced for most.  Whoever had done this was decidedly too advanced for the class.

            Andrew considered bringing this information to Faith but decided against it for the moment.  He sat down at the teacher's desk, intently studying the document, deciding it would be better for him to know what this thing was and what it was designed to do before he brought it to the attention of the Slayer.  "Weird," he commented to himself as he began to go over the design more thoroughly.

*******

            "I'm telling you, it wasn't just that he wanted to be seen, it's that he wanted to make a difference also.  He wanted his life to have some sort of meaning, he wanted to matter," Dawn insisted, continuing her conversation with Kennedy over the book they were currently assigned to read in their English class.

            Kennedy smiled and shook her head, almost thinking that she was hearing Dawn talk about her own life, knowing she often thought people only saw her as Buffy's helpless little sister.  "I think you're reading too much into it sweetie, why can't we just take it as a good story, told by a good author who just wanted to tell a good story?"

            "Because high school English teachers never accept that an author might have written a story just to write a story."  Kennedy and Dawn stopped at her locker where the potential Slayer spun the lock around until it opened; replacing her two English books with the text book she needed for their next class.

            "I just don't understand why everything has to have a deeper meaning."  Kennedy closed her locker back.  It wasn't that she didn't understand the point Dawn was making, simply that she didn't agree with it.  "I just don't see why we can't take things for what they are rather than trying to figure out what someone might have meant for them to be."

            "Because that's what we have to do to get an A," Dawn was less than enthusiastic with her comment, leading Kennedy to believe she didn't entirely buy into the whole deeper meaning deal either.  "And an A is a good thing."

            "So I gathered," Kennedy remarked with a subdued smile, facing Dawn.  When she turned around, she was immediately confronted by Amber, Brooke and Alyssa, walking towards them with almost fake smiles on their overly made up faces, wearing flashy outfits in bright blue, red, green, purple and yellow colors.

            "Kennedy!"  Amber squealed, waving as she ran up to Kennedy, throwing her arms around her, drawing quizzical expressions from both her and Dawn.  After a few seconds of hugging her tightly, Amber eased up and looked her in the eyes.  "I told the girls what you and Dawn did for me and we are just so grateful you saving my life from that," Amber paused for a moment as she tried to remember what they had said her attacker was.

            "Vampire," Kennedy finished the sentence for her.

            All three of the girls seemed taken aback by the comment.  They didn't quite understand what Kennedy meant when she said vampire because everyone knew vampires were just in movies.  Amber admitted that it definitely was something bizarre but, having had time to think about it since she was attacked, doubted Kennedy's explanation, thinking it had to be someone who had taken too much speed.

            "Well whatever," Amber waved off Kennedy's comment.  "The point is, you saved me and, well I just don't know how to repay you."  As Amber continued talking to Kennedy, Alyssa looked up at the red numbered digital clock on the ceiling, seeing they only had about a minute to get to their next class.  She tapped Amber on her shoulder, pointing to the clock.

            "Kennedy, Dawnie, we've got to jet but we'll see you two at lunch," Alyssa and Brooke grabbed Amber's hands as the three cheerfully went down the hallway on their way to class.

            "I hate being called Dawnie," Dawn's obvious distaste for the three girls was more than evident in her voice.  She and Kennedy began strolling through the hall where dozens of students were scrambling to reach their next class before the tardy bell, in fear of the ever threatening tardy.

            "I think they're nice," Kennedy could understand why Dawn didn't like them.  They weren't the most intelligent or serious but Kennedy at least saw that they're intentions were good.  "I mean, they're not the brightest bunch in the world but at least they're friend … and appreciative."

            "They're friendly because you saved her life," Dawn scolded.  She believed that she understood better how high school friendships were defined.  Do a favor for someone popular, they like you.  The bigger the favor, the more they like you.  "Remember how little attention they paid to either of us before Saturday night."

            "I'll give you that," Kennedy admitted that Amber and her bunch hadn't been the most social towards her before she had saved Amber from being the next meal of a vampire.  "But they are friendly."

            "Hey Dawn," Dawn instantly recognized Tyler's voice from behind her.  Both she and Kennedy turned around, Dawn wearing a large, flirtatious smile, getting one in return from Tyler as they locked eyes.

            "Hey Tyler," she was slightly more relaxed this time then when they had talked on the phone Saturday night.

            Kennedy decided to give the two of them some alone time.  "I'll see you in class Dawnie," she whispered wryly into Dawn's ear, causing her friend to shoot her a glare as she walked off.  She quickly returned to smiling at Tyler.

            "Dawn I need to get to class too but I just wanted to say I'll see you at lunch."

            "Yeah," Dawn was enthusiastic.  Seeing at lunch was another term for eating lunch together which was a step in the right direction as far as she was concerned.  "I'll see you then," the two parted paths as the bell rang, both realizing they would be late to class and neither particularly caring.

*******

            "You don't find it a little odd?"  Robert was like a statue standing in front of Faith's desk as the Slayer organized the small amount of personal items she had brought to decorate her work space.  She hadn't officially started work yet but she had been hired and wanted to get her desk in order to have everything organized for when she did start.

            "No," Faith said from underneath her desk where she was struggling to hook up her computer.  "I'll admit the police officer thing did throw me when you first showed up, especially considering you never told me about it but I don't think odd is the word to describe it."  She found the correct plug on the computer and hooked the monitor cord into it.

            Robert scowled at her as she emerged from under his desk but could not hold his anger when he saw her, dressed in light blue jeans, a spaghetti strap red t-shirt with her dark hair pulled into a ponytail.  That was a power Faith always had over him, no matter what she did, he couldn't stay angry with her.

            "But hey," she turned around, going through the brown box she had set on her desk chair.  "I suppose I'll get used to it after a while, just not to used to being friends with law enforcement types you know?  Must be the whole spending time in prison thing."  She took a framed photograph out of the box and put it next to her nameplate on the surface of the desk.  Robert caught the image from the corner of his eyes, a picture that was likely a few years old of Buffy, Faith and Willow, all looking as though they were happy, smiling at least.

            "You know that's not what I mean Faith," Robert wasn't in the mood to play games.  The death of Sarah and the possible connection to whatever had attacked him and Spike had left him shaken.  More so, he was racking his brain trying to come up with a possible connection but came up with nothing no matter which avenue of thought he explored.

            "Right," Faith lifted the box, still containing a few items off the chair and put it on the floor so she could sit down.  As she leaned back in the chair, crossing her legs and holding a pencil in her hands that she put to her lips, she quickly looked Robert over.  Normally, a man in uniform wouldn't be the type of thing she would be attracted to but Robert was always the exception to that rule.  "Some sort of freaky little robot things killed a girl and attacked you and Spike.  You got any leads?"  Though she didn't seem interested, Faith wanted to get to the bottom of this as much as Robert did, she just didn't quite see it as a Slayer issue, no demons or dark powers being involved.

            "Just one," Robert pulled the photograph from his uniform pocket and circled around the desk to show it to Faith.  "The girl's mom said his name is Tyler Jacobson," Faith recognized the name as a boy Dawn had talked about more than once.  "They dated for the better part of last year and she said that he took it pretty hard when she broke up with him."

            Faith took the picture and leaned forward, slowly tapping at keys on her keyboard while she played with the pencil in her on the edge of her lips.  In a moment, Tyler's permanent record appeared on her screen.  Both of them read over information on his grades, extra curricular activities and as well as comments from his counselor the previous year.  "Straight A student," Faith remarked, still reading through it.  "School newspaper, band, yearbook, debate team and drama club."  She glanced up at Robert with a curious expression.  "This is your killer?  I think you're grasping at straws here Robbie."

            It was the first time she had called him that since he came to Sunnydale.  "Yeah, I figured it was a long shot when the detective asked me to check it out.  Still couldn't ignore the possibility."

            "Yeah," Faith glanced into his eyes, seeing instantly how much this was bothering him.  "But you've got one of the robots, we should check and see if we can't find where the parts might have come from, maybe then we can figure out who it is building these things."

            "Good thinking, we can check the local electronics stores, anyone who bought this many parts will no doubt be remembered."

            Faith grabbed her white over shirt off the back of the chair and put it on.  "I'll tell Dawn to keep her eyes and ears open too.  Since that girl did go to this school, there's a chance one of her friends might have heard something that could be relevant."

            "I'll meet you at the car," Robert left the counselor's office, Faith following slightly behind him.  They parted ways in the hallway as Robert headed for the parking lot to pull his car around to the front of the building and Faith went to find Dawn.  As they walked away, Robert stole a final look at the Slayer.

*******

            Spike was bored.  Still brooding over his encounter with the robots and wishing he could get his hands on more of them or whatever was controlling them, the latest episode of _Passions_ was providing him little comfort.  He needed to get out, he needed to find something evil, beat it to a pulp and kill it.  Unfortunately he had the sunlight to contend with.

            A sound coming from his sewer access below raised his attention.  Though visitors at the crypt were not infrequent, much to his dismay, they usually chose to come to the front door rather than use the sewers.  He left his chair, quickly throwing a tape in the VCR and pressing record, not wanting to miss an important moment in his show and proceeded to the lower level of his home.

            Three figures, their faces displaying their vampire nature, waited for him below.  Spike shook his head and grinned when he saw them.  "Well, well, well, the Ellis brothers."  Spike vividly recalled his last encounter with the three brothers when he and Dru had visited them in Texas years back.

            "Been a long time Spike," the eldest brother had the thickest of the group's southern accents.  "I heard you went and got a soul," he laughed with the other two joining in.  "Fell in love with a Slayer, I couldn't believe it."

            "Yeah well, not really in the mood for playing catch up with you boys.  Care to tell me why you're trespassing in my home?"

            "We have a message for you and the Slayer," the middle brother commented, taking a step closer to Spike.

            "Care to share?"  Spike asked with a raised eyebrow.  A message for him and Faith probably would not be a good thing.

            The youngest brother stepped closer as well.  "Die!"


	4. Act Three

ACT THREE 

            "Die?"  Spike scoffed with a furrowed brow.  He was anticipating some big long denunciation of his getting a soul and becoming good and talking about how his death would be the first herald of a long apocalypse.  He was left feeling cheated.

            "Die."  The eldest of the Ellis brothers echoed the comment of the youngest.  The three vampire brothers began to circle him like vultures circling their prey.  Spike was not phased by this approach.  He had faced off against multiple enemies before, many a great deal more intelligent than the Ellis brothers were.  He grinned, keeping eye contact with whichever of the three brothers was in front of him at the time.  "Come on now, surely whoever you're working for could think of a better speech to give, something to strike fear into my heart."

            "We'll put more than fear in your heart Spike," the middle Ellis brother tried his best to be intimidating.  Spike laughed, slowly reaching his hand into the pocket of his jacket, reaching for the stake he had concealed in it for just this type of occasion.

            "Now, now boys," Spike maintained his alarmingly calm composure despite the three homicidal demons circling him.  "Surely there's another way we can handle this.  I doubt you really want to try to kill your old buddy Spike."

            "You're not our friend," the youngest brother spoke up first.  "We don't associate with the types that have souls and fall in love with Slayers, all two of them."

            "I knew that whole Slayer mess would come back to haunt me," Spike mocked wryly.  "You know it wasn't really my fault," Spike was beginning to wonder how long is whole charade of killing time would last before the Ellis brothers grew tired of it.  "If it wasn't for some government chip in my head, I would have killed the bitch a long time before I up and fell in love with her."

            "We don't want to hear your excuses Spike," the middle brother's voice was grim, indicating to Spike that they were finished playing.  "We only want you to die."

            "All right then," Spike's tone noticeably changed as the vampire became deadly serious, dropping his facade of trying to talk the Ellis brothers out of making an attempt on his life.  "If that's how you boys want it, I'll give you a choice."  He slowly, methodically turned around, looking each of them in the eye before speaking.  "Either you tell me who sent you and get out of her right now so I can go handle them or," Spike's face shifted, showing his vampiric side.  "I can send all of you back to Texas in dust pans."  They reacted by slightly backing off from Spike, knowing from their prior experiences with him that he was not one to bluff in such situations.

            "Your choice," the vampire with a soul concluded.

            The Ellis brothers stood, silent and steady for several seconds before one final made the choice for all three.  The youngest leapt forward, sailing through the air, descending on Spike.  He reacted, in a quick motion pulling the stake from his pocket and whirling into in the heart of his approaching enemy, a pile of dust falling to the ground along with the weapon.

            Seeing their youngest brother fall before them in the blink of an eye, the other two Ellis' vowed revenge.  From behind him the middle brother charges, Spike landing back kick in his stomach, sending him crashing into a wall.  In front of him, the oldest brother charged and rammed his shoulder into Spike's chest.  Before he could be pushed all the way back, Spike brought an elbow down on his head and a knee up into his chin, sending the oldest brother to the floor.

            From behind him, the middle brother quickly rebounded, coming towards him, jabbing at him with a long piece of discarded wood.  Spike ducked the high attacks, jumped over the low ones and darted out of the way of the jabs that would have been lethal had they landed on their intended target.  As he ducked one attack, Spike remained in a prone position, grabbing the board and swinging the middle Ellis brother into the eldest who had just regained his footing.

            Spike flipped the board into his hand and flung it like a javelin into the back of the middle brother, turning him to dust in front of his older brother's eyes.  Before the eldest brother could react, Spike was already prepared.  Picking another piece of discarded wood off the floor, he threw it into his enemy's shoulder, causing him to cry out in pain.  The vampire slowly strolled towards the last remaining of his three attackers as he struggled to pull the wood from his shoulder.

            A kick from Spike took his stomach sent him back to the floor, where Spike kneeled down and punched him in the face.  Spike slowly pulled the piece of wood from his shoulder and held it over his defeated enemy's heart.  "Now, you've always been the most sensible of you and your brothers.  Surely you want to tell me what I want to know.  Don't want you to end up like your poor brothers over there do we?"

            "I won't tell you a thing!"  He spit in Spike's face.  His defiance only furthered Spike's determination to get the truth out of him.  With a grin on his face, Spike drove the wooden weapon through his enemy's other shoulder.  He screamed again as Spike twisted it in his shoulder, not allowing the pain to die.

            "I think you will," Spike's soft voice was more intimidating than a yell would have been.  "All I want is a name, not hard."  He pulled his makeshift stake from the other vampire's shoulder and quickly drove it into his hip, waiting for the next cry to die down before he continued speaking.  "Just the name of the bloke that seems to want me dead."

            "He'll kill me," the other vampire remained defiant despite Spike's torture.

            "Probably," Spike conceded.  He knew from past experience that evil masters who wanted to conceal their identities usually weren't too happy when their minions suddenly developed loose tongues as to their identities.  "But if you don't tell me, you'll die here.  So tell me what's worse, knowing you'll die here or knowing you might die if he ever catches up with you."

            "I won't talk, not to you, not to the one who betrayed our kind."

            That, although true, struck a nerve.  Spike drove his stake into the vampire's other hip, twisting and grinding it deeply into the muscle until he felt it rubbing against bone.  "And what's it say for you that the vampire with a soul kicked yours and your brother's asses all the way back to Texas and then some?"  He pulled the stake from his hip and again let it hover over his heart.  "After all, you used to be pretty feared where you come from."  Spike grinned and slightly shook his head.  "Oh wait, that was only after me and Drusilla stopped by for a visit, fitting."

            "Go to hell Spike."

            "Talk and I won't send you there faster."

            Suddenly and unexpectedly, the other vampire began to laugh loudly.  Spike was not expecting this, as was evidenced by his expression.  "You think it will stop just because you've beaten us?  You have no idea what is coming.  If I fail, more will come and more after them, until you, the Slayer and everyone who can oppose him are dead.  He is coming, he has already arrived and there is nothing –" His rant was cut short as Spike drove the stake into his heart, turning him into a lifeless pile of dust.

            Spike went back to the upper level of his crypt, sitting down to catch the last few minutes of _Passions_ before rewinding his tape to watch what he had missed during his brief encounter with the Ellis brothers.  He could not help but think of them and the Talicar demons he had encountered earlier this week.  Spike suddenly realized this was not going to end.

***

            Lunch.  It was the one time during the school day most students generally looked forward to.  It was the time when they didn't have to tolerate teachers, principals, lectures, thirty year old film strips and note taking.  It was the one time of day they could really be themselves and enjoy being teenagers without the pressures of having to conform to standards of teach expectations and letter grading systems.

            At least that was how Dawn and described it to Kennedy before she started at Sunnydale High.  After a week however, Kennedy was seeing it as more of an excuse for students to talk loudly, publicly grope their significant other and throw things, which Dawn conceded was also true.  Both of them though admitted that it was a welcome and much needed break in the day if nothing else.

            After making their way through the crowded line at the salad bar, where the food was actually supposed to be green, the two girls were now left looking for a place to sit.  Staying an extra five minutes in their last class to discuss the homework assignment with the teacher had thrown off the possibilities of them finding a table with anyone aside from the chess club which, according to Dawn, wasn't a suitable option.

            As they strolled through the rows of crowded tables, an option presented itself, to Kennedy at least.  From the end of one of the long rectangular tables, Amber spotted the two girls walking through the rows.  She stood up, her usual perky smile on her face as she waved to them.  "Kennedy!  Dawnie!  Come sit with us!"  She gestured to two open seats at the table with her, Alyssa and Brooke.

            When Kennedy began eagerly walking towards the open chairs, Dawn grabbed her arm, giving her a hesitant expression and shaking her head in an attempt to discourage the idea as she did what she could to hold Kennedy back but the potential Slayer would not be stopped.  She almost drug Dawn the first few steps before she finally conceded and walked the rest of the way, sitting her lunch down on top of the table before pulling out a chair and cautiously sitting down.

            "So Kennedy," Amber paid no intention to her lunch, put her hands on top of Kennedy's palms and wasted no time in jumping into what was sure to be a mind-numbing conversation with her savior.  "Tell us all about you.  Where did you come from?  Why weren't you in school here last year?"

            "Yeah," Brooke immediately picked up where Amber left off.  "We want to know everything there is to know about you."

            Dawn had to restrain from laughing.  She admitted she was glad both she and Kennedy were being accepted but she knew it was just superficial.  They didn't want to be friends with her and Kennedy; they wanted to be friends with the girls who had saved Amber's life.  She thought maybe she was just being negative; her conversation with Faith about Sarah's untimely death and the killer robots definitely had her on edge.  Dawn decided, for the next few minutes, she was just going to relax.

            "Well," Kennedy realized she couldn't tell them everything about herself but decided a few minor details probably wouldn't do any harm.  "Not much to tell really.  I grew up in Europe, moved here last year and now I'm going to Sunnydale."

            "Europe, wow," it had long been a dream of Alyssa's to visit Europe.  "Why would you want to give up living in Europe to come to Sunnydale of all places?"  Everyone in the group shared the belief that this town wasn't the most exciting of places.

            Kennedy considered giving an answer something along the lines of having to come here to fight monsters and an undefeatable evil older than the world itself, just to gauge the reaction of Amber and her friends.  "Work study program," she answered dryly as she took a sip of her diet soda.  This drew expressions from the other three girls that begged for further exposition.  "Yeah, came over here on a work study program and just loved it so much I decided to stay."

            "And how do you know Dawn?"  Dawn was surprised Amber even bothered to bring her up.

            Kennedy and Dawn shared a knowing glance of eyes with each other.  She's the sister of the person who led the army to fight the evil force again didn't seem to be the most appropriate of answers to give.  "We did some work together last year."

            "While you were here on your work study program!"  Alyssa made the nonexistent connection.

            "Yeah," both Dawn and Kennedy agreed.

            "So Dawn, whatever happened to your sister?  The one who used to be a counselor here?"  That was one question of Brooke's that Dawn didn't know how to answer and neither did Kennedy.  Saying that she is traveling the world with a witch in search of all things evil also fell into the category of inappropriate answers.

            "Hey Dawn," luckily, Tyler coming up to the table carrying his lunch try, backpack slung over his shoulder, was an easy way out of answering the question.  "Mind if I sit down?"

            "Of course she minds," Amber answered harshly.  Tyler was taken aback by the comment and looked to Dawn to say something but Amber continued.  "Why would Dawn want to hang out with you?"

            "It's okay," Dawn tried to salvage the situation.  "Really, it's all right.  Tyler, it's all right."

            "Dawn please," Alyssa jumped in next.  "You don't have to stick up for him.  He's just a … nerd, a reject trying to be cool by attaching himself on to someone who is cool and sucking all cool from them."

            "Get out of here," Brooke added with seeming disgust in her voice.  Dawn began to wonder where their dislike of him came from until they realized it was just how things worked.  Looking for Dawn to say something different, Tyler turned and walked away, almost running.

            "Tyler," Dawn's plea for him to stay didn't carry well enough for him to hear.

            "You're better off without him Dawnie," Amber returned to drinking her bottle of fruit juice.

            "You didn't have to do that," Dawn stood up from the table.  She was tired of this.  "You can't just treat people like that and expect to make your way through life."  Kennedy stood and followed Dawn away, realizing that these three girls were exactly like Dawn said they were.

            "Kennedy," Amber grabbed her hand, still wearing her trademark smile on her face.  "Stay, you don't have to go with Dawn, she's a nobody."

            Kennedy grinned.  "Let go of my arm before you feel a less pleasant side of it."

            "See what I mean?"  Dawn turned and looked at her friend when she caught up to her.  Then she thought about Tyler.  She was afraid of what he might be thinking about her.  He probably thought she was no better than Amber, Alyssa and Brooke, probably thought she thought he was nothing more than a generic high school nerd.  "I need to find Tyler."

*******

            "Well that was certainly a productive use of our time," Faith was not in a good mood as Robert pulled his patrol car into the parking lot at the school.  They had spent over an hour canvassing local electronic stores, checking for leads on the parts used to build the robots and coming up with nothing.

            "Could you think of a better place to start?"  Robert put the car in park and undid his seatbelt.  "Seems to me those parts would have to come from somewhere."

            "Yeah," Faith was being unusually quiet.  Not that Robert wasn't used to it, it seemed as though she was almost going out of her way to avoid talking to him since he arrived in Sunnydale.

            He finally decided to try prying to find out what was bothering her.  "You all right?"  She gave him a strange look, almost as though she didn't understand the question.

            "Five by five," she said with a shrug.

            "You seem, I don't know, kind of distant lately," he wasn't willing to let it go so easily this time.

            "You haven't exactly been Mr. Social yourself lately," Robert began to wonder if that answer was part of what was bothering Faith.

            "Is that what's wrong?"  He slightly leaned over the center console of his car, getting closer to Faith who slightly backed way, inching closer to the door, not going unnoticed by Robert who eased off slightly.  "I know you've gone through a lot lately Faith; I thought you needed some space."

            "What makes you think you know what I need?"  Though her words made it sound so, the tone of her voice betrayed the fact that she was not angry, as did her forlorn expression.  She lowered her head, closing her eyes and took several deep breaths, Robert looked at her intently.  With emotion in her eyes, she looked back up, locking gazes with him.  "What makes you think you're not what I need?"  

            She shook her head.  She didn't want to be doing this now; she didn't want to be doing this period.  "So much has changed Robert, since we knew each other.  I've changed, you've changed," he looked away from her, Faith knowing she had struck something there.

            "I care about you Faith, you know that," he didn't want her thinking his feelings had changed.

            "I know," she was confident in that.  His caring and compassion had gotten her through a great deal and she knew it would never change no matter how much they changed as people.  "But we can't do this now.  There's too much going on in both of our lives."

            "Yeah," Robert would be the first to admit they never did have the best sense of timing.  The last time they had a conversation along these lines, Faith was in prison and he was a guard.  He gazed at her for a moment and her back at him before Robert snapped himself out of it, knowing they had work to do.  "Maybe we should check some of the local demon haunts, I doubt they'd know anything but, you never know, maybe we can find some sort of crazy demon scientist who is drunkenly blabbering about his latest creation."

            Faith smiled.  Robert seemed to know the right thing to say when she needed to hear it.  He was right; they did need to get to the bottom of this, before someone else got hurt.  "Let me check with Dawn, make sure she's okay and see if she might have heard anything."

            Robert nodded.  "I'll wait here."

            After she was gone for several minutes, Robert was growing impatient waiting.  His police radio had been quiet since this morning, meaning he wasn't being negligent in his duties by going around with Faith looking for whoever was behind the robots.

            Zoning off, he was pulled back to reality by a tapping noise on his window.  He quickly looked to see Andrew feverishly rapping on the glass with his fist and an almost panicked expression on his face.  Robert rolled the window down, looked at him and waited for an explanation.

            "Officer Bloodworth … uh, Robert, take a look at this," Andrew thrust a piece of paper at him.  Robert slowly extended his hand, took the paper and looked it over.  Diagrams, drawings, mathematical equations, Robert wasn't an expert at any of this but he was beginning to understand why Andrew had brought it to him.

            "Just before she left the school, Faith told me the two of you were trying to track down the maker of some evil robotic spider things that sound like they'd be a perfect plot of a movie of the week on the Sci-Fi Channel."

            "Andrew," Robert snapped at his digression.

            "Right, right.  This piece of paper," he thumped the paper with his fingers.  "This is instructions, diagrams, components, all the direction someone would need to build one of those things.

            "Where'd you get this?"

            "I found it one of my classes."

            Robert popped his door open, almost jumping out of the car and running towards the school.  He knew he had to find Faith now.

*******

            With the halls virtually empty due to most people being at lunch, Dawn was surprised it taking so long and proving so difficult to track down one person.  She and Kennedy had split up in hopes of finding Tyler faster but she for one was having no luck.  The halls were bare with the exception of closed classroom doors and rows of blue colored lockers along the walls.

            Becoming frustrated, Dawn took the one opportunity she saw, an open classroom door.  Walking inside, she instantly picked out Tyler, seated at the back of a row of desks, a black laptop computer perched in front of him.

            "Tyler," Dawn said, both excited, relieved and nervous that she had found him.

            "Go away Dawn," there was more than anger, more than disgust in his voice as he feverishly worked the keyboard on his laptop.  Dawn didn't give up.  She slowly walked towards him, trying to look into his eyes, every attempt met by him looking away.

            "Tyler," she pleaded.  "Talk to me, please.  I'm sorry, what they said, I'm sorry.  That's not how I, you've got to know that's not how I feel."

            "You're no different than the rest of them," Tyler tapped a final key on his computer then closed it up.  "I thought you were," he all but flew out of his seat, grabbing his backpack off the floor and stuffing his laptop inside.  "But you're not."

            "Tyler, I," he did not allow Dawn to continue speaking.

            "Don't try to tell me you know how I feel Dawn!  Don't try to tell me you care!  Don't try to tell me you didn't want to hurt me!"  He began storming out of the room, Dawn too emotional to try and follow him.  Tyler turned around one last time as he neared the door.  "You don't know how much pain you put people through but you will.  You'll know all about pain and suffering and torment."  Tyler walked out of the room.

            Dawn, hurting almost more than she could stand, sunk into the closest desk.  Tyler hadn't even given her a chance to explain what happened and, in reality, she couldn't really blame him.  She had the chance to say something at the lunch table, to stand up for him but she didn't do anything, she just sat there and let the three girls denounce him without saying a word.  She felt like she wasn't any better than them.

            "Dawn," when Faith came through the open door and saw her sitting at the desk, her head hung low, she became instantly concerned.  "You okay?"  She didn't answer.  "Dawn, what's wrong?"

            "It's nothing," Dawn shrugged Faith off, thinking she wouldn't understand.

            Faith wasn't going to press Dawn if she didn't want to talk.  "If you say so," she sat down at the desk next to her.  "I hate to ask but, have you heard anything about, you know, what we talked about earlier?  Robert and I have been trying to track down some information but coming up with nothing."

            Dawn had barely thought about that.  Since the encounter with Tyler at lunch and again just moments ago, Dawn hadn't thought about much else aside from him and how she had so unintentionally hurt him.  "No, haven't heard anything, haven't seen any evil robotic spiders," a noise scurrying across the floor caught her attention and she looked in its direction from the corner of her eye.  "Aside from those right there of course."

            Faith looked in the direction Dawn was looking and saw dozens of the robots crawling in from the door at the rear of the classroom.  The Slayer's instincts kicked in, springing to her feet, grabbing Dawn and pushing her behind her as she slowly backed up to the front of the classroom, facing and keeping her eyes on the spiders.  "Dawn, stay behind me," Faith was cool and collected as hundreds of spiders continued poring in, covering the floor and slowly marching towards her and Dawn.

            They reached the front of the classroom, backed up against the blackboard, between it and the large, wooden teacher's desk.  The spiders had surrounded both doors and covered the windows, Faith knew there was nowhere left to run.  "No matter what happens, stay behind me," Faith knew she had to protect Dawn, even more than she had to protect her own life.

            "Heard ya the first time," Dawn wanted to keep Faith from repeating the order a third time.  After that, as the robots slowly advanced towards them, the Slayer wasted no more time.  She brought her leg up, kicking underneath the teacher's desk, sending it flying into the air, crashing down on several other desks and the spiders underneath them.

            The speed of the spiders increased as did the speed of the Slayer.  Faith grabbed the back of the teacher's rolling chair and swept it in an arch across the floor in front of her and Dawn, rolling over the spiders as they approached, sparks flying into the air as the chair, with the strength of the Slayer behind it, crushed them into tiny parts.  The spiders persisted, crawling up the back of the chair and onto Faith's arms, causing her to halt her defense to scrape them off of her.

            "I swear!"  The Slayer exclaimed, resuming her attack with the chair against the approaching robots.  "Where's a giant can of raid when you need one!"  The battle continued.

*******

            In a dark janitor's closet, the monitor from his laptop computer providing the only light, he watched the video feed from his spider's ocular sensors as they battles whoever this woman protecting Dawn was.  Not sense he had sent them to kill the two men who were talking to Dawn at The Bronze had he seen someone put up this much of a fight.  He decided it was time for it to end.

            Tapping several keys, the words 'Tranquilizer Armed' flashed across the screen in green letters.  No matter how tough she was, she wouldn't be able to keep standing, let alone fighting after an injection of his specially designed formula.  The first dart was launched from one of the spiders, sticking into her arm but it did not slow her down.  Every test of his formula against a human rendered the victim unconscious in seconds.  He launched a second dart.

*******

            Faith felt another prick in her arm and then another.  Everything began to grow fuzzy, dim.  The Slayer continued the fight but she felt herself slowing down, she felt everything stopping until she toppled over into the oncoming horde.  The last thing she saw before her eyes collapse were the spiders surrounding Dawn.


	5. Act Four

ACT FOUR 

            "Faith!"  Robert ran through the door to the classroom and saw the Slayer lying in the floor.  He bent down, picking her up in his arms and checking for a pulse and breathing, both of which he instantly noticed meaning she had just been knocked unconscious.  "Faith, wake up," he gently tapped her face with an open hand, trying to get to her.  Examining her arms, he noticed three tiny darts stuck near her veins, now believing there had to be some kind of fowl play involved in this.  When it was obvious his attempts to wake her were not working, he went with the only option he saw available and keyed his radio lapel microphone.  "1144 – Dispatch."

            "1144," the response from the police department came quickly.

            "Need E.M.S. to the high school, I have an unconscious female, possible drug or poison related."  He continued trying to wake Faith to no avail as he waited for the response from dispatch.

            "10 – 4, 1144, will dispatch E.M.S."  As soon as dispatch responded to him, he heard a series of loud tones going out on the radio, alerting emergency medical services to go in service, a radio transmission advising them what the assignment was.  This was quickly followed by the responding units acknowledging, the sounds of their sirens in the background as the drivers spoke on the radios.

            "Faith come on," Robert was more intense this time, still gently tapping her face and shaking her, hoping to avoid a big hassle with paramedics, ambulances and hospitals.

            "Dawn!"  Was the first word out of her mouth when her eyes opened.  Faith quickly sat up, out of Robert's arms and looked around the room at the piles of broken robots but did not see what she was looking for.  She looked back at Robert.  "Where's Dawn?"

            "She wasn't here when I got here.  I didn't see her in the halls either.  Maybe she took off," Robert proposed the best possible explanation for why the young woman wouldn't be there, knowing it was by far not the most likely one.

            "No," Faith quickly discounted that as an option.  "No, we were surrounded, she couldn't have."  Faith stood up, Robert immediately following her as she brushed loose robot parts off of her body.  "We've got to find her."

            "We've got to take care of you first," Robert didn't know what it was that was used to knock Faith out and he didn't want to take any chanced on it.  "I've got E.M.S. on the way to check you out."

            "Don't make a big old show for me Robert."  Though still somewhat dazed, Faith felt fine.  "I'm five by five, besides, don't forget about the superpowers, accelerated healing comes with the whole Slayer package."

            "I still think it would be a good idea."

            "I think we need to find Dawn and the longer we wait to start looking, the hard it's going to be, so call 'em off and let's get to work."  Robert conceded he was not going to win the debate with Faith, keyed his microphone and told the ambulance they could stand down, that the person had just fallen but was fine and their services were not needed.  He then advised the police department dispatch that he would be out at the high school for a while longer.

            "Let's fine Kennedy and Andrew, get them to help.  I couldn't have been out for more than a couple minutes so there's a pretty good chance she's still at the school somewhere."

            "Andrew might have a lead on who's responsible."

            "We have to find Dawn first," Faith was determined.  She had promised to keep Dawn safe and was scolding herself for being so easily taken down by the robots when she was trying to protect her.  "Then we track down whoever is behind this."  Faith surveyed the classroom a final time, making sure she hadn't missed any crucial detail in it.  "You think there's a chance those things killed her?"

            "No," the image of Sarah's dead body was still fresh in his mind.  "No, I've seen how these things kill, it's not this tidy.  She's got to be alive somewhere."

            Faith was relieved as she imagined trying to explain that one to Buffy whenever she wanted to know how Dawn was doing.  The Slayer didn't say anything else as she stormed out of the classroom and into the hallway with Robert following.  "Dawn!"  Faith yelled at the top of her lungs, her voice echoing throughout the long empty high school hallways.  "Dawn!"  She yelled again after receiving no response.

            "You get Kennedy and Andrew," Robert took charge of the situation.  "Check the classroom, offices.  I'll check the parking lot, football field, all the rest of it."  He pulled a piece of scrap paper from his front shirt pocket and wrote a number down.  "Page me if you find anything."

*******

            It was dark and cold, wherever she was that was Dawn's first impression when she woke up.  She couldn't see anything in the blackness beyond the chair she was tied down to.  All she could hear was the faint sound of water dripping nearby from what she surmised was an overhead pipe.  In her memory, she tried to run through the last thing she remembered.  Watching Faith try to fight off the spider robots and then collapsing.  Her last memory was of something poking her in the arm right before she herself passed out.

            Then she woke up here, wherever here was.  She tried to remember what Buffy and Faith had taught her about what to do in these situations.  The bonds on her arms and legs were too tight to make escape a viable option and the room too dark for her to try figuring out where she was.  She looked down at her feet, seeing then the only clue to her predicament.  She gasped as she saw the groups of spider robots that had formed a circle around the chair she was seated in.

            Unlike in the classroom however, they were not attacking, not even moving, if not for tiny movements in their legs, she would have thought their batteries had died or they had been switched off.  As it was, it was like they were all watching her.  She considered that they weren't there to attack, rather to guard her, prevent her from trying to escape, as if she could.

            "Beautiful aren't they?"  Dawn heard an all too familiar voice come from the darkness above her.  A light came on.  She quickly looked around, confirming her initial suspicion that she was being held in a basement.  It wasn't just a basement though.  Electronic equipment of all types covered long wooden tables.  In the corner farthest from the one she was being held in, something large was covered by white tarps.

            "The pinnacle of technological achievement," Tyler continued.  Dawn looked up and saw him walking down a long wooden staircase, slamming a door behind him as he entered the basement.  "Don't you agree?"  He finished descending the staircase and stood just behind the rows of spiders in front of Dawn with a menacing grin about his face.

            "What do you want?"  Dawn spoke with nothing but disgust as she locked eyes with her captor.  She thought there might be some small chance of talking him out of whatever he was planning or at least buy herself some time for Faith to find her.  If Faith even knew where to start looking.  Despite what Faith had told her about Sarah's mother saying he had taken their breakup hard, she never considered Tyler to be a suspect, until now at least.

            "What do I want?"  He mocked the question.  "What do I want?"  He paced frantically in a short line in front of her for a moment, thinking, before finally giving his answer.  "I want to be treated like a human and not like some insect by people like you and Amber and Brooke and Alyssa and Sarah.  I want people to like me for who I am and not just because I can help them with their homework.  I want to walk through the hallways at school without being laughed at, tripped, pushed or having 'Kick Me' signs taped to my back."

            He began walking away, taking several steps, picking up a laptop computer off one of the tables before turning around, walking back towards her and continuing his rant.  "I want friends.  I don't want to be called a nerd just because I don't play football.  I want to do well in school and not be ridiculed for it.  I want people to think of me as being a normal guy.  But mostly Dawn, you know what I really want?"

            "A healthy dose of sanity," Dawn replied, the hate in her voice not diminishing.

            He charged towards Dawn, slapping her in the face with his hand not holding the computer.  "Respect!"  He calmed down instantly, taking several deep breaths and three steps backwards from Dawn, not losing eye contact with her.  "I want people to respect me.  No one respects me.  Not you, not Sarah, nobody," his voice became sullen as he slipped into his true motivations.  "But you will.  Soon, everyone will."

            "You're going to make people respect you by having robotic spiders eat them all?"  Dawn recognized a normal variation of villain logic emanating from Tyler.  "Did it ever occur to you that people can't really respect you after they've been eaten?"

            Of course it had.  "They'll see," Tyler quickly countered.  "They'll see the penalties for not giving me the respect I deserve, the respect I've earned and they'll fall into line.  Speaking of which Dawn," Tyler tapped a key on his computer, causing all of the robots around her to tap their front two legs once against the concrete floor.  "Would you care to beg for your life?"

            "You're insane."

            "Hmm … not quite the amount of begins I was hoping for really."  He pressed three more keys that sent the robots scattering across the floor, hiding in shadows, under tables and near the walls.  "But I like you too much just to kill you, that's why I have something special planned for you."  With his computer resting in the palm of his hand, Tyler slowly began walking towards the tarp covered object.  "You see, the main problem with my little friends here is that they take me a longtime to build and your friends have destroyed almost my entire first batch."

            "Gee," Dawn's voice shifted from dripping with hatred to dripping with sarcasm.  "That's a shame."

            "Oh don't worry," Tyler reached the corner, placing his hand on top of one of the tarp.  "Because I've designed a system that can produce one of them in seconds, converting raw materials into parts and at the same time, act as a central processing network for a hive mind, directing actions of thousands of individual units and even participating when a greater show of force is required."

            Tyler yanked the cover off revealing a hideously larger version of the robot spider, standing at least three feet taller than its creator.  "Wonderful isn't it?"  Tyler ran his hand down one of the beast's polished metal legs.  Dawn did not reply.  "The only problem is power."  Dawn felt a long and drawn out explanation coming.  "The queen requires more power than I can easily generate with any sort of battery source.  Except for you of course."  Dawn couldn't believe what she was hearing.  "Your body generates enough heat to power the queen.  I'm going to turn you into a living energizer."

            "Tyler," Dawn tried to remain as calm as possible, hoping she still had a chance to talk him out of this plan.  "No offense, but I think you've seen _The Matrix_ a few too many times."

            "It actually a very sound scientific principle," Tyler set his computer on one of the tables and grabbed a welder, having a little work left to do on the queen before he was ready to plug Dawn into it.  "Plus," he added from behind the welder's mask.  "I think it'll give us a good chance to spend some time together, do stuff together, you know the sort of thing you would never have thought of before now."

            "Tyler, please listen to me," Dawn pleaded, thinking she saw an opening for her negotiations to get through.  "You don't understand.  What happened, I didn't mean to hurt you.  I like you; I've liked you for a long time.  You don't have to do this."

            "Yeah," Tyler scoffed.  "You like me just like everyone else likes me, when you need something.  You say I don't have to do this Dawn but I don't see any other way than to do this."  He returned to his welding, leaving Dawn to watch.  "Just a few hours of work left to go, we should be ready to rock and roll by dark."

            Dawn waited, hoping Faith wouldn't let her down.

*******

            Faith, Robert and Kennedy sat in the living room of the Slayer's house, waiting.  After their search of the high school had turned up nothing, they had resorted to using the one solid piece of evidence they had to try and locate who or whatever was behind the spiders, hoping in turn it would lead them to Dawn.  Andrew had collected one of the more intact damaged robots, removed the computer chip from inside and was now attempting to access its programming, hoping it would give them some sort of useful information.

            With the exception of Andrew, who was fully engrossed in trying to bypass the computer encoding, the rest of the gang was growing tired of waiting.  Faith and Kennedy worked on sharpening bladed weapons while Robert, whose shift had ended a few hours before, was cleaning one of his sidearms.

            "Yes!"  Andrew proudly proclaimed, slamming his fist down on the table near the computer, signaling to the others a definite success of some sort.

            "Address?"  Faith raised her eyebrows, asking the only question she cared about.

            "No uh," Andrew hesitated as the Slayer glared at him.  "I, uh, won an autographed picture of Captain Picard off Ebay."  All three of the others glared at him before Kennedy shot out of her seat.

            "Can I hurt him?"  The fiery potential asked with eyes cast towards Faith.

            "No," Faith continued glaring at him.  "But I might if he doesn't hurry up and get me where I need to be."  Nothing frustrated her more than having to wait because of something that was completely out of her control.  Robert always used to tell her that he was surprised she lasted in prison because of it.

            "I'm working as fast as I can," Andrew went back to feverishly working the keyboard.  "But breaking through custom encoding on a type of system I've never even seen before isn't exactly my forte you know."  After several more key clicks, he again pounded his fist on the desk, proclaiming victory.

            "Obi-Wan lunchbox?"  Robert asked sarcastically.

            "No, I broke through the code," Andrew thought about it for a moment before returning to his work.  "Though I do have two of them, maybe I should try to sell one."

            "Address!"  Faith cut that train of thought and rambling off before it continued for too long.

            With Andrew working the keyboard, Robert holstered his pistol and stood over his shoulder, reading date as it appeared on the screen.  "819 Brookstone," Andrew reported.  "They're programmed to return there in the event of any sort of catastrophic system failure."

            "Tyler Jacobson's house," Robert said grimly with eyes cast towards Faith.

            "How do you know?"  Faith of course realized it was his job as a police officer to know some things about the neighborhoods he patrolled but doubted he had been able to learn so much so quickly.

            Robert flipped his keys into his hand as Faith and Kennedy collected their weapons and joined him on the way out the door.  "Let's just say vanity got the best of him, his name is listed in the robots code as 'The Creator'."

            "You drive," Faith volunteered Robert as she headed out the door, Robert following behind her and Kennedy in the rear who squeezed in the last comment.

            "I knew that guy was trouble."

*******

            After a bit of searching, Spike had actually managed to find a bar in Sunnydale he hadn't been tossed out of with orders not to come back during the past six months.  Given his recent encounter, he had the feeling that one of the local demon haunts wouldn't be too friendly.  Therefore, he settled on drowning his problems in alcohol for the evening and trying not to think about or concern himself with what Faith and the others might be up to.

            Stepping into the establishment, it struck Spike as being simply an average bar.  Dim, dirty lighting accenting the smoke filled air that smelled of day old beer.  The wooden floor was cracked and stained, the tables, bar stools and pool tables also in various degrees of disrepair.  Spike's kind of place.  

Being early in the evening, the crowd was fairly light, a handful of people sitting at tables, two playing pool at one of the poorly lit tables and three at the bar.  As he took several slow and long steps inside, a person at the bar caught his eye and Spike grinned.  Though he had initially wanted to spend the night ignoring Faith and all of Buffy's other little friends, he did find this particular situation 

Sitting at the bar, a half empty mug of beer in his hand was none other than Xander.  Wearing a large grin on his face, Xander being the last person he would have expected to run into, Spike slowly walked towards him and took the seat at the bar next to him without saying a word.  Xander glanced in his direction, barely regarding the vampire, turning back to his drink.  As it clicked in exactly who was sitting next to him however, Xander turned back to him, glaring at the vampire.

"Oh please, no."  Xander's slurred speech betrayed that he had already had too much to drink on this night.  Spike was the last person Xander had wanted or expected to see.

"What?"  Spike shrugged.  He knew Xander didn't want to see him and also knew they had likely come here for the same reasons but decided to play the innocent game for a little while.  He was curious to see exactly how annoyed he could make Xander while expending the least amount of energy in doing so.

"Don't play innocent vampire with me," Xander slurred, pointing an accusing finger at Spike.  "The last thing I want is the biggest pain in the neck sitting beside the biggest pain in my head."

            "Well sorry," Spike fought to keep from laughing at Xander's drunken state.  He waived to the bartender and pointed to Xander's drink, a signal that he wanted the same.  "But it is a free country you know so I think I'll sit where I want.  Suppose you could tell the pain in your head to leave."  The vampire grinned as he took a healthy gulp of his drink.

            "Like my life isn't pathetic enough," Xander polished off another drink that was almost immediately refilled by bartender.  "Without having to put up with you."

            "Your life isn't pathetic," Spike didn't really care about making him feel better, he simply thought pretending to do so might agitate him further.  "That's just the alcohol talking."

            "No, that's my two best friends taking off on a globe hopping journey without me talking.  That's being stuck in Sunnydale working construction and living with a nerd talking."  He glared at Spike, hating him even more as the vampire nonchalantly sipped his beer.  "But most of all, that's sitting here talking to you talking."

            "Give it a rest," Spike was now tired of listening to him.  "Besides, it isn't like you have demon after demon trying to kill you."  Spike thought about that for a moment.  "Okay, I'll admit you've had a few demons try to kill you."

            "Over two hundred!"  Xander had kept count throughout the years.

            "All right," Spike admitted.  "So a lot of demons, still doesn't mean your life is all that bad."

            "No friends," Xander set his mug down and began to count his points on his fingers.  "Dead end job.  Sunnydale."  He again glared at Spike.  "And you."

            "Hey," a loud and also drunken voice came from behind Xander.  He and Spike turned to see three large men approaching, pool cues in hand.  "We've had about enough of you two, you're talking too loud, interrupting our game."

            Spike felt a way to relieve some tension coming on.  "And what are you going to do about it?"  He flew off the bar stool, standing up to the three thugs, issuing a challenge."

            "Yeah!"  Xander stumbled up beside him.  The three men smiled, holes and yellow stains on their teeth showing when they did so.  In a split second, one cracked a pool cue against Xander's head, sending him toppling to the ground.  Spike sprang into action, punching two and knocking them down before the third one landed a blow against him.

            Xander was quickly back on his feet as were the other thugs.  Throughout the bar, people grabbed pool cues, chairs, bottles, glasses and anything else they could get their hands on as the establishment erupted into a full out brawl.

*******

            Dawn was stuck, literally.  She had spent the last several quiet hours as Tyler tinkered with is creation trying to figure out a way to escape but the binds on her arms and legs were too tight and she knew she wouldn't get far with the remainder of Tyler's robots working nearby.  She only hoped Faith would get to her in time and that prospect did not instill her with a great deal of confidence.

            Tyler closed an access panel near the belly of 'the queen' and approached Dawn.  "Well, it's time," he bent down and spoke close to her face.  "You have any last words you might want to share before you spend the rest of your natural life as a human battery."

            "You're not going to live through this."

            Tyler was taken aback, expecting something a little more desperate and pleading.  "You know, it's too bad there's not going to be a tombstone to put that on so all the word can bask in the wisdom of your last insightful moments."  Tyler reached over to a nearby table where he retrieved a syringe loaded with a light brown liquid.  "Just a little something to make you calm."  He showed remarkable care when he stuck the needle into her arm, barely causing any pain.

            As the sedative took effect, Dawn's eyes grew blurry and her muscles weak.  Tyler untied the ropes around her arms, legs and chest, all but carrying her towards the queen.  He used his body to support her as he keyed in an access code on the belly of his machine.  He was prepared to lift her inside when a voice from the stairway interrupted him.

            "You know," Dawn looked in the direction of the familiar voice to see Faith casually walking down the stairs, swinging her arms, a sword in her hand.  "This just doesn't strike me as the typical super villain hangout.  A little too, high school nerd needs a life for my tastes."

            Tyler laid Dawn down on the floor, believing the queen could wait for a moment.  Without saying a word, he picked up his laptop and keyed in the command controls for his remaining robots.  "I'll show you what being too much of a high school nerd lets a guy do."  All of the remaining robots emerged from the shadows, scurrying up the support beams of the staircase.

            Faith flipped over the railing on the staircase, pulling a small crossbow she had concealed in her jacket and firing a single bolt as she landed.  The bolt struck the bottom of the computer near Tyler's hand.  Sparks flew from the machine, Tyler instinctively dropping it as they burnt his hands.  When the computer shattered into pieces, the small robots stopped.

            He now saw that he had only one option left.  He started to bolt for Dawn, hoping to plug her into the queen but Faith pointed her sword at him, causing an abrupt halt.  "I wouldn't think about trying to take another step if I were you," she took several deliberate steps closer to him.  "You'd be dead before you got close to her."

            "So what are you going to do?"  Tyler backed up from Faith, putting his hands over his head to fake a surrender, already having a backup plan in mind.  "Kill me?  I don't think so," he smirked as he shook his head.  "Then you'd be no better than me."  He banked on a mind game giving him the time he needed.

            "You sure I'm not?"  Faith raised her eyebrow and pointed the sword towards his neck.

            "How about we put you in jail?"  Robert and Kennedy both emerged at the top of the stairs, Robert trained his pistol on Tyler as they walked down.  He stood at Faith's side while Kennedy went to take care of Dawn.  Robert flashed his badge around his neck.  "Sunnydale Police, you're under arrest."

            "Well then," Tyler continued slowly backing up until he was side by side with a rolling chair.  "I guess you better take me in," he pushed the chair into Faith and Robert, throwing them off balance, giving him the time he needed to run to another computer behind the queen as they regained their balance and pursued.

            "You don't think I would build this most perfect creation without a backup power supply?"  Tyler worked the keyboard with almost a blinding speed.  Before Faith and Robert could stop him, the robotic legs of the queen creaked to life and its giant eyes lit up red.  Kennedy pulled Dawn out of its path as it advanced on Faith and Robert both of whom assumed a defensive stance.

            Balancing on its back six legs, the queen swung the pointed metal ends of its front two legs at Faith and Robert, both leaping out of the way.  As they recovered, the queen attacked again in the same fashion.  Robert rolled to the side.  Faith ducked and swung her sword at leg which attacked her.  Sparks flew as the metal of her sword met the metal leg.  Jumping over another low attack, Faith stabbed at the belly of the robot, piercing the hard metal skin but seemingly causing no damage.

            "You can't destroy it!"  Tyler shouted, still working the keyboard, obviously controlling the queen's movements.  "It is perfection!"  With the queen now more engaged with Faith, Robert took his opening.  He pulled one of his short swords from his trench coat and tossed it into the spider's eye closest to him, blinding it and too a degree Tyler to his movements.  He rolled out of the way to where he had a clear line of sight on the young man, aimed his pistol carefully and fired two shots.  Tyler ducked, the bullets impacting against the concrete wall.

            Though the bullets narrowly missed his head, him being away from the keyboard and not controlling the queen for a brief moment gave Faith that opportunity she needed.  With the machine distracted, she leapt on top of its giant head.  When she had steadied her footing, Faith flipped her sword around and drove it deep into the metallic skull of the creature.  The red from its eyes faded and its body collapsed onto the floor.

            "No!"  Tyler pounded on the keyboard, attempting to bring his creation back to life after Faith scored a critical blow to its central computer system.  "No!"  Tyler attempted to run but Robert and Faith had already caught him, throwing him against the wall face first.  Robert pulled his arms behind his back, placing a pair of handcuffs on him.

            Faith and Kennedy helped Dawn out as Robert led Tyler to the car.  As Dawn looked at him for a final time, she knew it was over for now but a dark voice echoed in her memory.  She looked around the neighborhood block, nothing abnormal about it but she could not shake the feeling they were being watched.

            "Thanks for your help," Faith stood behind Robert as he finished loading Tyler into the car.  "Couldn't have done it without you."

            Robert wasn't sure how true that was.  Faith was, after all, the Slayer.  "Anytime you need help, don't hesitate to ask."  Just then, Faith's pager went off with Xander's cellular phone number.


	6. Envoi

**ENVOI**

            Swirling red and blue lights from multiple police vehicles accented the dilapidated structure as uniformed officers brought multiple individuals out of the bar in handcuffs.  After quickly dropping Tyler off at the city jail for processing, Robert and Faith had wasted no time in quickly getting here after Xander told her what had happened.  Both he and Spike were sitting on the hood of Robert's patrol car, hands cuffed behind their backs with Faith quietly standing a few feet in front of them.

            She kept a watchful eye on Spike.  He had been different lately and she didn't care much for the change in his attitude.  Faith knew the cuffs wouldn't hold him if he really wanted to escape so she was ready to stop him if he tried anything.  Even though he had a soul and had been helpful in the past, Faith wasn't ready to tolerate this kind of behavior from a vampire.

            As the number of police vehicles in the parking lot began to thin, Robert emerged from the bar.  The expression on his face betrayed the fact he was not happy with the situation.  He approached Xander, told him to stand up and took the handcuffs off his arms and then took them off Spike.  "I talked the bar owner out of filing charges against the two of you since you didn't start the fight."  He looked Xander in the eye, knowing the threat he was about to issue would be meaningless to Spike.  "But if this kind of nonsense ever happens again, I'm not going to be so nice about it."

            "And Spike," Faith immediately followed, getting the vampire's attention.  "If you ever do anything like this again, I'm not going to be so nice about it."

            Spike shook his head.  He was tired of this.  "This is it Slayer."  Faith first thought he was issuing some kind of a challenge.  "It isn't worth it anymore," he clarified but Faith still wondered what he was talking about.  "You and your friends don't need me and being a part of your little gang only gets demons and my own kind trying to kill me."

            "You trying to say something?"  Faith wanted him to get to the point.

            "Yeah," the vampire said with a furrowed brow.  "I'm out Slayer."  Leaving nothing unsaid, Spike turned and walked into the night, leaving Faith standing by herself.  Robert and Xander, standing nearby, heard what was said but chose not to say anything to Faith or Spike in response, seeing it a better to option to let it rest for now.

            "I'll give you a ride home," Robert said to Xander.  As Xander got in the car, Robert looked at Faith who was still standing to the side of it.  "You coming?"

            "No," Faith shook her head and lowered her eyes.  "Think I'll walk."  Robert didn't say anything, knowing it probably wouldn't do any good.  He got in his car and drove away, leaving Faith standing alone in the now almost empty parking lot.

**EXECUTIVE PRODUCER**

**Gary Boshears**

**NEXT TIME ON SLAYER**

**[images] Faith fighting with and staking a vamp, a middle-aged man approaches from behind her.**

**Man: You lack form, style, precision and discipline.**

**Narration: When a new watcher arrives ...**

**[image changes to Faith, Robert and the man in her living room]**

**Faith: Look pal, no offense, I just don't do well with authority figures.**

**Robert: That's true.**

**Narration: Not all is harmonious.**

**[image changes to Spike's crypt, he sits in his chair, back turned towards **

**the**** door with a stake in hand, from the door we hear...]**

**Harmony:  Spikey!**

**Spike: Oh god no ... [Spike drops the stake, his eyes grow wide as we switch **

to a close up of Harmony at the door]

**Harmony: I'm back!**

[**image**** swtiches quickly to Faith fighting Harmony in a grave yard and back **

**to**** her living room with Robert, Xander, Dawn and Kennedy]**

**Faith: So what's the big deal, we just find her and kill her?**

**Xander****: Harmony isn't your normal vampire.**

**Faith: Real powerful?**

**Xander****: Try really, really stupid and that's not to be taken lightly.**

**[images:] Faith and Harmony fighting when the camera cuts to a closeup of Harmony's face, looking down to her chest which is not seen]**

**Harmony:  You staked me!  Buffy never staked me!**

**Narration: On an all new ... Slayer!**


End file.
